Mexico City Adventures: Are you still there?

Wow, I have got to be the worst blogger in blogging history. Sorry for taking sooo very long to update!

We've been home now for a week, and slowly life is settling back into normal. We have done our grocery shopping, I've cleaned a good chunk of the place, our washer/dryer machine is getting fixed tomorrow...life is good. Hate to brag, but it was SO nice to walk out of the airport, into the 78 degree day and feel the sun on my face, and see the palm trees that decorate the lawns of the airport. Ahh...it felt like vacation!

Avery has been enjoying being back to her daily routine with a few walks to the dog park (it was too cold in MN for more than a walk or two while we were there!), although I think she missed all the commotion and people around the first few days back home. I think she got used to having all sorts of people to play with, and other dogs to interact with, that now she's bored with just "me". Oh well...she's getting back to normal.

We had a great trip home, it was so wonderful to see everyone! It was very productive, as we had many appointments, saw lots of friends, and got lots of wedding things underway! I had a fantastic group of girls with me to help select my wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses...thank you so much girls! You're a great group of girls and I'm so lucky to have you with me during all the wedding process, and there on our big day! We met our photographer, toured our venue, got the dresses all picked out, and got the bridal party all lined up! I'm so excited for my trip home in May, to get more of the wedding finalized/picked out, our engagement pictures taken (I know, a bit late!) and for my bachelorette party!

I haven't done a post since my trip out of town to the "Christmas town" of Tlalpujahua, Mexico. I went with some ladies from the Newcomers Club, and it was so much fun! We drove about 2.5 hours out of Mexico City, and ended up in this tiny town in the mountain with cobblestone streets, and a magnificent old church...it's been deemed a "magic town" by the country of Mexico. Magic towns, or Pueblos Magicos, is a type of program that was started by the tourism branch of the Mexican government to help restore and preserve towns/villages/cities that are of significant historical importance, in hopes of bringing tourists to more areas of Mexico.

The Newcomers club does a tour of a Christmas ornament factory there every year. Tlalpujahua has the 5th largest ornament factory in the world. They make hand-blown glass ornaments that are sold in stores like Target, K-Mart, Home Depot, etc in the US. What was amazing to us was that it was ALL done by hand, from the shaping of the glass balls to the painting of the designs. Below I have some pictures of the process. After this, we were able to buy ornaments from the factory for an average of about $0.25-0.50 a piece. I stocked up :) There were many shops in town that sold Christmas ornaments and decorations, and in the center of town there was a beautiful old church, which we had lunch across from. Such a beautiful day and town!